With a cry of terror and warning Rowgowskii sprang away from the boat's side and went scrambling up the hill. The two coolies, still a-tremble with the fear which the sudden and mysterious death of their mate a moment before had put in them, followed him shrieking.
Chang leaped to Lavelle's side, the spot where he had been standing filling with water as his feet left it.
"Lun, master! Lun, lady!" shouted the giant.
"Come!" said Emily to Lavelle, starting toward the hill. She took but a step. A sharp cry of anguish, which she tried hard to suppress, escaped from her. Her limbs refused to carry her. They seemed to be breaking with the pain born of the cramped life in the boat.
With a murmured word of understanding Lavelle snatched her into his arms and carried her halfway up the hillside. Chang pushed him as he went. When he put her down in a mat of grass and taro plant tops she still clung to his hand as a child might have done.
On this higher ground the movement of the island was not less terrifying.
"Was—is it an earthquake?" Emily whispered in awe.
Lavelle shook his head. His gaze went searching up to windward and then darted across the island to leeward where the sun was tobogganing down a bright yellow sky—such a sky as invariably presages wind. He turned to windward again.
For an instant despair overwhelmed him. This islet was but a bit of waif land—the bait of a cruel trap which the sea had set for him. Even as he watched it the surf piled higher and higher against the sheer weather shore. This was the fanged jaw of the trap; and it was closing. The swiftly rising wind which whipped his face seemed to chuckle in glee.
To drive the heavy boat through that surf and back to sea was a task which seemed to him to be beyond the force at his command. Nor could that crew get it across the island to make a launching from the lee side.